As I turned back the rich robes and the jingle of the bells came to her ears, she started; but I drew her down into the seat, and pulled the flannel-lined coonskin robe which was under us, up over our laps; I wrapped the army blanket and the thick buffalo-robe over and under us; and as I did so, a little black-and-tan terrier came shivering out from under the coonskin robe and jumped into her lap.  I started to put it down again, but she held it—­and as she did she looked at my blue sleeve, and then up at the mass of wrappings I had over my face.  I thought she snuggled up against me a little closer, then.

4

I turned the horses toward her boarding-place, which was with a new family who had moved in at the head of the slew, near the pond for which poor Rowena was making the day of the prairie fire; and in doing so, set their faces right into the teeth of the gale.  It seemed as if it would strip the scalps from our heads, in spite of all our capes and comforters and veils.  Virginia pulled the robe up over her head.  I had to face the storm and manage my team; but before I had gone forty rods, I saw that I was asking too much of them; and I let them turn to beat off with it.  At that moment I really abandoned control, and gave it over to the wind and snow.  But I thought myself steering for my own house.  I was not much worried; having the confidence of youth and strength.  The cutter was low and would not tip over easily.  The horses were active and powerful and resolute.  We were nested down in the deep box, wrapped in the warmest of robes; and it was not yet so very cold—­not that cold which draws down into the lungs; seals the nostrils and mouth; and paralyzes the strength.  That cold was coming—­coming like an army with banners; but it was not yet here.  I was not much worried until I had driven before the wind, beating up as much as I could to the east, without finding my house, or anything in the way of grove or fence to tell me where it was.  I now remembered that I had not mounted the hill on which my house stood.  In fact, I had missed my farm, and was lost, so far as knowing my locality was concerned:  and the wind was growing fiercer and the cold more bitter.

For a moment I quailed inwardly; but I felt Virginia snuggled down by me in what seemed to be perfect trust; and I brushed the snow from my eye-opening and pushed on—­hoping that I might by pure accident strike shelter in that wild waste of prairie, and determined to make the fight of my life for it if I failed.

It was getting dusk.  The horses were tiring.  We plunged through a deep drift under the lee of a knoll; and I stopped a few moments to let them breathe.  I knew that stopping was a bad symptom, unless one had a good reason for it—­but I gave myself a good reason.  I felt Virginia pulling at my sleeve; and I turned back the robes and looked at her.  She pulled my ear down to her lips.